Foreign firms under scanner after Kudankulam stir

New Delhi, April 12 (IANS) The government has in a fresh order asked all foreign outfits in India to furnish it with updated details of their workers and nature of their work, at least once a year.

The close watch on foreign entities in India follows the revelations that anti-Kudankulam nuclear stir in Tamil Nadu was funded by NGOs in the US.

According to a circular from the union home ministry, foreign companies, including NGOs, have to necessarily update their data about their workers, including those doing liaison for them in the country.

Though details of employees are usually provided when visas are sought but this has to be updated at regular intervals.

The order has been sent to various ministries with a two-page template form that all foreign entities would be asked to fill with the details.

The form asks for details of the employees working with the firm in India. Such companies have been asked to provide details of foreigners who had visited India from them.

The circular also asks them to keep a record of their meetings with various governments and departments and forward it to the home ministry once every year.

Sources said this was being done following allegations that some foreign companies were trying to influence government offices to get tenders and projects passed in their favour.

The sources said the new circular comes in the backdrop of revelations that American NGOs were funding the protests that stalled work at the Russian-built nuclear plant in Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had, in an interview to Science magazine, said that "the atomic energy programme has got into problems because these NGOs, mostly I think based in the United States, don't appreciate the need for our country to increase the energy supply".

The home ministry is now probing the role of foreign NGOs in sustaining the stir against the Kudankulam project.